Property Of
Salish Kooienai Community College
Continued dry conditions result in mandatory 'hoot owF restrictions
Not counting a few pitiful showers that all but dried up before they hit the parched ground, and two days of fitfull drizzle, there's been no real rain on the Flathead for about six weeks.
In an effort to reduce the risk of man-made fires lighting up the Reservation's skies, the Tribal Council on July 26 voted to make the following "hoot owl" restrictions mandatory,
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not voluntary:
Open burning of natural or cultivated vegetation, trash, debris, and litter is prohibited until such time as the weather permits and Tribal Council action dictates.
Campfires are prohibited except at designated campgrounds.
Smoking permitted only in developed campgrounds, places of habitation, and enclosed vehicles.
Use of chain saws or any motorized equipment for felling, bucking, skidding, road building, blasting or welding is prohibited between 1:00 p.m. and 1:00 am
On-going woods operations will be patrolled for one hour daily after motorized equipment has been shut down.
Should conditions worsen, an emergency closure of all roads leading to the Reservation's forests could occur, as happened in 1960 and 1973.
Until a good two or three inches of rain falls to wet everything down, forest land and fire control managers will continue to worry about exhausted crews, and the fact that fire season hasn't technically arrived, all the evidence to the contrary (although the Reservation's forests haven't seen much fire action so far, luckily enough.)
Fisheries experts will keep on worrying about the effects of shrinking streams on wild fish populations.
Farmers will continue to sweat about using up their quotas of irrigation water well before summer's end
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Tribes move for injunction against FIP
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The Tribes are seeking a preliminary injunction to force the Flathead Irrigation Project (FIP) to maintain minimum instream flows on certain Flathead Reservation streams during the current drought
Federal District Court Judge Charles Lovell, in a hearing that's said to have lasted most of a day, issued a temporary order Aug. 1 in Helena requiring FIP to stop diverting water for irrigation unless it can ensure enough water in steams to preserve certain trout
fisheries.
He declined to set specific water flows and pool levels.
Stanley Kaleczyc, attorney for the Joint Board of Control, which opposes the Tribes' request for the injunction, had asked Judge Lovell to require that the Tribes post a $6.7 million bond to cover potential damages, according to The Great Falls Tribune
He contended that should irrigation water be completely shut off, affected farmers and ranchers could suffer $6.7 (Concludes on page two)